MovieChat Forums > Cadillac Records (2008) Discussion > Am I the only one that was bothered by??...

Am I the only one that was bothered by??? (includes spoiler)

posted 16 years ago by Karunesh
42 replies | jump to latest

Overall, I really liked Cadillac Records. As has already been pointed out by others, it does not get all the facts right, but as a movie, it's enteratining and well made.

However, there was one thing that bugged me. It's when Little Walter and Muddy Waters are driving through the South and come upon the imposter prentending to be Walter. Walter aks which one is "Little Walter", then without abother word pulls a gun and blows the guy away, leaving him for dead (there's no way he could have survied that shot at such close range). What's worse is the reaction in the theater - people were laughing when Walter snuffed this guy point blank and walked away as if nothing had happened.

Well, it's called first degree murder folks, and it's niether hysterically funny or entertaining. Only a cold, ruthless *beep* could have done that to someone, yet we the audience are supposed to find it amusing and sympathize with Little Walter.

Is this how sick our society has gotten? Are we that accepting of murder, and that decensitized violence?

A truly disgusting "sour note" in an otherwise entertaining film.

Karunesh

[–] Classic-Tammi 16 years ago

You're not the only one to feel that way. There was nothing significant about that scene and they could've done without it.

This has been a public service announcement.

[–] mojoman3061 16 years ago

dldutton: It is interesting to me that people are questioning the authenticity of this scene and wondering about the resulting nervous laughter in the audience, but nobody is doubting that the white cops beat the crap out of Little Walter while spewing racial epithets, and nobody in the audience I saw it with laughed at that part. Are we sure THAT happened, or have we all just been conditioned to assume that it did?

I don't know enough about Little Walter to know whether he was beaten up by white cops in front of the Chess building, as in the movie. He lived in a time when black people were often beaten up by white cops, so we've been conditioned that much.

That execution-style murder scene was bizarre. It caught me totally by surprise when Walter shot the guy, and then the movie moved on to something else. The murder seemed more the kind of situation in which Walter didn't want any witnesses other than the alleged Little Walter's band. The cops beating him up didn't seem to care if they were seen or who they were seen by. It was right there on a busy Chicago street, after all.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] davidkpye 16 years ago

The point of the violent scenes probably was to demonstrate the violence that was a part of the blues lifestyle. Men were always challenging each other and one had to mantain their reputation.

All of these black men were from the South, which was a very violent region at the time. There were always fights, shootings, and stabbings in southern juke joints. These southerners took this part of their culture with them when they went North. In the North they then acquired other elements, such as linking violence with protection of their lifelihood, but it is still similar to what was happening in the South. In the South men, white and black, would shoot you for any apparent questioning of their manhood.

have none of you ever seen Jezebel? Or have you never heard about duels in the South? Or how about southern family fueds that last decades?

It is all the same thing.

So, please, do not somehow arrive at the conclusion that this film is glorifying violence. Instead, the movie was obviously trying to be historically accurate.

DP

[–] cyrano4 16 years ago

Dear David,
I'm afraid that the movie was not historically accurate in its depiction of Little Walter as a cold-blooded murderer. And your description of Southern men who would "shoot you for any apparent questioning of their manhood"
is quite false. Look at the murder rates in the South for that period, the nineteen fifties, and you'll see that it was far more peaceful then than it is now. This is not to say that there were not acts of murder and violence in the South but that it was far less violent then than it is today. And to say that there were fights in juke joints of that period is undoubtedly true; to say that there were always shootings and stabbings in these places is simply not true.

[–] davidkpye 16 years ago

That the murder rate was less in the 50s than now is not relevant. There are many other reasons why the murder rate is more now. Number one is that the population has grown exponentially since the 1970s!

But if you look at violence by percentage/proportion it has always been very high. In fact, many scholars say the South is now and always was the place where one was most likely to meet violence.

DP

[–] ericsinla 16 years ago

I was also really bothered by that scene and expected a follow up or something ( like a warrent for his arrest or something ) after another 15-minutes I turned off the film to watch something else and I looked on here to see what others are saying about the scene. Now that I see that there isn't any follow up I don't think I will bother watching the rest of the film. What a horrible thing to put in a film and with no facts backing it. What is up with that?

[–] oxblood 16 years ago

I laughed. It was played for laughs. He cavalierly shoots the imposter as he walks back to the car. I'm sure if he stood in front of the guy and shot him point blank with some serious mood music beneath it, the audience reaction would have been different. But it was a very casual scene with Little Walter music playing in the background, meant to showcase the recklessness of his character and personality.

[–] bleekgilliam 16 years ago

I was in shock the first time lil walter lullabyed the other walter, but the 2nd time I saw it, I found it funny because the "imposter's" appearance was raggity and dirty and lil walter was daper and the way the imposter was like "yeah, i'm him, and?!!!!!!!!".LOL

Everybody laughs a deaths though, just depends on the tone of a movie, like for instance, if it was a Jason or Freddy movie, it's funny because those kids are hard-headed and don't know when to leave stuff alone for their own safety.

I rest my case,
Bleek

[–] SouthernDiva73 16 years ago

I don’t know if the shooting was really true or not but I do believe that during those times black on black shootings went unprosecuted most often. Remember the Little Richard movie? Somewhere in the south a black man killed Little Richards father and the police weren’t too concerned about it at all.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] lumbee 15 years ago

I never took it for granted that the man who was shot was killed... perhaps not even hit or maybe just grazed... it just wasn't made clear. Every bullet does not kill. Every shot doesn't find its target... if nothing else I'll bet the guy had to change his pants, eh?

[–] rhapha1 15 years ago

We live in a violent society. We laugh because his character is a loose cannon. He also drove drunk. You didn't mind that? Get over it.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] emerpus01 15 years ago

I think what bothers people here is that, from the movie, people will assume that Little Walter actually killed a man, an event which has apparently never even been suggested as having happened. This is a flaw in the movie, but not a fatally damning one.

I think that there are certain stories where historical accuracy is more important than in others, and although the story of Chess Records is important, I can let something like this slide more easily than movies like MISSISSIPPI BURNING and CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, both of which radically change important American history that is still vital today.

MISSISSIPPI BURNING actually portrays a black FBI agent kidnapping and threatening to castrate a southern Sheriff's deputy. Such a thing was not even possible in 1964, when the film took place. The film portrays the FBI as tireless crusaders for racial justice, and largely portrays the black population of Mississippi as passive and frightened. A person equipped with such a set of inaccurate facts will find it harder to understand racism in America because they now have a completely different - and falsely based -historical perspective, which is that the civil rights movement succeeded with the help of the FBI, when in fact the Bureau was more a hinderence.

So, what I'm saying is that historical inaccuracies are usually bad, but moreso when there is important political content in the film that could influence people's opinions in the years to follow. Such films could rightly be called propaganda. These can be very well made films - just look at the effects of three of the greatest films of the first half of the 20th century - BIRTH OF A NATION, OCTOBER/10 DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD, and TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. Each movie blatently and spectacularly rewrites history, and each significantly contributed to justifying tremendous suffering in their countries of origin (the resurgence of the KKK and hightened white supremicist violence can be traced directly to the release of BIRTH OF A NATION; our country might have advanced far further than we are today in race relations had it not been for the myths propagated by that movie).

In that light, it's still a tragedy that many people will walk around believing that Little Walter was a murderer, but it just makes CADILLAC RECORDS a flawed movie; it's only when a movie deceptively promotes a political agenda that it becomes a genuine danger to society.